What’s changed since 9/11?
Violence has begot more violence, writes Harun Yahya
AFTER the September 11 attacks, George W Bush, the then US president said: “This crusade, this war on terrorism is gonna take a while.” Bush said the government was determined to “rid the world of the evil-doers”.
Trusting in the American troops against radical terrorism, George W Bush indicated that the Christian world would respond to terror with terror.
No doubt a crusade did not occur but the Christian world believed the way to struggle against violence would be only violence. The outcome was untold suffering; Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria were devastated, millions lost their lives and radical terror ascended.
In brief, violence begot more violence.
For the past 16 years, we have insistently been dwelling on the following: The lifeblood of violence is violence. Radicalism can be defeated only by eradicating it intellectually. This can be accomplished by an alliance of genuine Muslims and Christians that intends to educate, not to generate more violence rather than a “Crusade Campaign” or a “Christian alliance”.
In a pitiful situation however, this fact that we have highlighted for a long time could not have been accomplished. Terror acts followed one after another; recently it has targeted Europe. For oneand-a-half years France has been in a state of emergency while Britain has been shaken by a spate of recent terror acts.
In the aftermath of the most recent attack in Britain, Prime Minister Theresa May made several statements reminiscent of the mistakes made in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.
She said: “The attack on London Bridge shows there is ‘far too much tolerance’ of Islamist extremism in Britain.” She also stated that the pluralist values of Britain must be advocated against everything presented by “hate speakers”.
Pluralist British values are no doubt important in terms of the concepts of freedom, equality, diversity and democracy they advocate. Culture is also significant for it also advocates art, aesthetics, quality, freedom of thought and human rights. The pluralist British values May speaks of must surely be protected against hate speakers and advocated to the end.
However, pluralist British values do not bring a solution for radicalism.
British values make up a form of culture, a lifestyle, yet it is not a religion or some kind of faith.
Radicalism, on the other hand, originates from a belief. Some consider this as Islamic radicalism; however this form of belief has nothing to do with Islam.
This form of belief – which is divorced from the Islam depicted in the Qur’an and based on violence, terror and shoddiness – has been artificially generated.
In order to eliminate the twisted belief system that is nurtured within this struc- ture, a righteous belief system should be presented.
What will make a radical abandon his mission of terror is when he believes in Islam. He can stop his terror acts only when he grasps that his religion is a religion of peace, and violence and hatred have no place. Therefore, the ideological counter-education that will refute their mistaken and distorted beliefs is the only solution for terrorism. As long as the West does not give support to this education and ally with peaceful, genuine Muslims in this respect and propose only their own values, this struggle will not succeed.
Radicalism is not something that can be purified by keeping one’s home and country clean. Radicalism has penetrated everywhere in the world. It has even reached Britain, an island country. This problem cannot be solved by curbing social media, having comprehensive security measures in airports or by the widest public monitoring network in the world. Precautions are necessary, but without taking any measures for radicalism and draining the swamp of such scourges, disinfecting the air would not deliver any results.
On the contrary, especially in the European countries in question, xenophobia and Islamophobia will spread, discrimination will emerge within societies and unhappy and furious nations will emerge.
As a result, the citizens of European countries will suffer the most.